FM 8: Index marker syntax

[Frank Stearns]

On Wed, 2 Oct 2013, VLM TechSubs wrote:

> 1. I now see that even a simple marker entry "<Emphasis>Eisphora" 
> has this problem. It appears in the "correct" location 
> alphabetically, it just looks like
>
>    . . . . . . 1
>
> 2. The original files were created in Word, but with no indexing. I 
> put in 100% of these markers by hand, by myself, this week, in 
> FrameMaker 8. In other words, they "shouldn't" be affected by Word 
> or the like. FYI, the ToC works just fine.
>
> 3. I just did the following:
>
> 3.1 Shut Frame.
> 3.2 Relaunched Frame.
> 3.3 Opened book file.
> 3.4 Opened all files in book. Got some font and xref error messages, clicked through those.
> 3.5 Highlighted, then saved, all files in book.
> 3.6 Generated ToC and index.
> 3.7 Saved all files in book.
> 3.8 Opened index.

> 3.9 Found one of the offending entries, jumped to its source. It was 
> a compound marker (2 entries in one marker).

> 3.10 I copied one of the entries for reference, clicked in the 
> document a few words away, and manually typed in the text for the 
> marker "America:Income tax of 1894", just like that.

> 3.11 Went to book file, all files selected, save all files in book, 
> then generate.

> 3.12 Entry appears in the correct location, without any text only 
> page #, and when I jump from that page number it takes me to the new 
> marker I just created.

> 3.13 So I jump there, notice that the original marker is still in 
> place, delete it, returned to 3.7 or so, repeated the whole process, 
> same result.

> 3.14 Saved the index as mif, closed it, deleted the .fm version, 
> reopened from mif, saved as FM 8, went to book, save all files in 
> book, generate, save all files in book, jump to index, and voila! 
> Same result as before.
>
> Sigh ...
>
> BTW, between steps, I recall breathing. :)
>
> Frank, I am most willing and eager to try your step #4, but I've 
> forgotten how to open the mif as text in Frame, after saving it.

I know there's a way to do that, but can't recall it. We've always 
used a programmer's plain text editor -- even notepad or wordpad will 
work fine. Avoids trying to get Frame to play in a way it doesn't 
"want" to. :)

This is all pretty nutty, that's for sure.

A few more random thoughts...

1. The Word source still makes me cautious. If you highlight text to 
create a marker, or even were to use our IXgen tool to create markers, 
there can still be those nasty non-printing characters that would be 
picked up from body text and transferred into a new marker and cause 
problems.

1A. When you hand typed a marker, was the entry field completely 
clear? (Those non-printing chars can be insideous. Click next to one 
in the body that you can't see and the marker dialog autofill might 
pick it up, and you'd never know it.

2. Forgot to verify the obvious: most of the markers are working 
correctly, and these are just isolated cases? Or, are you seeing the 
same thing happen any time you have an entry with a second level 
and/or font change?

3. Have you done a cold restart of your system? Shut it down 
completely, power supply switch OFF for a few minutes, then a reboot? 
I know, it's crazy, however....

4. In the IX file you generate, have you examined the reference pages 
that set up your entry formats? Are all the components there? Have you 
examined the entry para formats for anything odd? If you move the 
cursor through the entries in the main flow, do you notice if in the 
problem entries the para or char tag name suddenly becomes starred, 
indicating a deviation from the catalog settings?

Finally, I have a very fuzzy memory that FM8 had introduced some bugs 
in marker handling... Anyone else remember this? Do you have the 
lastest version of FM8?

Continued good luck with it!!

Frank Stearns Associates | makers of IXgen(tm) for FrameMaker(r)
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